GBR was by far my fastest building group! I planned on needing two class periods for building and an additional one for dropping and debriefing, but they all completed building in the first class period! As a result, we dropped this Tuesday! We were originally going to test drop our vessels, but the weather was so amazing we went ahead and did the experiment "for real" because SoDak weather isn't always predictable in October! We built vessels to keep a regular large chicken egg safe when dropped from the top of the slide on the playground. The first two classes dropped from the top of the log cabin on the side of the school, the third dropped from the top of the yellow slide on the playground. Fourth grade S/T class did not have any restrictions on number of materials, they were allowed to use their creative minds to make whatever they thought would work. The other two classes (everyone but 4th grade S/T) were given $10 for their group to purchase materials from me. Not a single design was the same! Their materials were: plastic bags, tape, glue, straws, yarn, rubber bands, cardboard, cotton balls, paper plates, bathroom cups, punch cups, sponges, paper clips, and decorations for their creations! It was a challenge to come up with designs that would work, but the kids soldiered on!
GBR had 5 casualties and two eggs that did not survive the walk back to the classroom. Some students staged funerals for their eggs. Special thanks to Emma for bringing eggs from her chickens for us to use! :) After the dropping, we learned about drag and impact. There were two ways they approached this project, some groups created drag by adding parachutes made of paper plates and plastic bags. Students correctly made the connection with drag racing and learned that drag racers use the same method to slow down their cars! The second method was reducing the impact using sponges and cotton balls. Real world applications of this are using wood chips or rocks under playground equipment to reduce their impact if they fall on the playground. This was a very successful project!
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